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CHAP. VIII.

THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS.

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No. I.

'HERE is a circumftance of conformity between St. Paul's hiftory and his letters, especially thofe which were written during his firft imprisonment at Rome, and more especially the epiftles to the Coloffians and Ephefians, which, being too close to be accounted for from accident, yet too indirect and latent to be imputed to defign, cannot easily be refolved into any other original than truth. Which circumftance is this, that St. Paul in these epiftles 'attributes his imprisonment not to his preaching of Christianity, but to his af ferting the right of the Gentiles to be admitted into it without conforming themfelves to the Jewish law. This was the 'doctrine to which he confidered himself as a martyr, Thus, in the epiftle before us,

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chap.

chap. i. ver. 24. (I Paul) "who now rejoice "in my fufferings for you"-" for you” i. e. for those whom he had never feen; for a few verses afterwards he adds, "I would "that he knew what great conflict I have "for you, and for them in Laodicea, and "for as many as have not feen my face "in the flesh." His fufferings therefore for them was, in their general capacity of Gentile Chriftians, agreeably to what he explicitly declares in his epiftle to the Ephefians, iv. I. "For this cause, I Paul, the prifoner of Jefus Chrift, for you Gen"tiles." Again in the epiftle now under confideration, iv. 3. "Withal praying "alfo for us, that God would open unto us

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a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Chrift, for which I am alfo in bonds." What that "mystery of Chrift" was, the epiftle to the Ephefians diftinctly informs us; "whereby when ye read ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Chrift, which, in other ages, was not "made known unto the fons of men, as it "is now revealed unto his holy apoftles "and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gen"tiles

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"tiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the fame

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body, and partakers of his promife in Chrift

by the gospel." This, therefore, was the confeffion for which he declares himself to be in bonds. Now let us enquire how the occafion of St. Paul's imprisonment is reprefented in the hiftory. The apostle had not long returned to Jerufalem from his fecond vifit into Greece, when an uproar was excited in that city by the clamour of certain Afiatic Jews, who, "having feen "Paul in the temple, ftirred up all the "people, and laid hands on him." The charge advanced against him was, that "he taught all men every where against the

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people, and the law, and this place; and "farther brought Greeks alfo into the "temple, and polluted that holy place." The former part of the charge seems to point at the doctrine, which he maintained, of the admiffion of the Gentiles, under the new difpenfation, to an indifcriminate participation of God's favour with the Jews. But what follows makes the matter clear. When, by the interference of the chief captain, Paul had been rescued

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out of the hands of the populace, and was permitted to addrefs the multitude who had followed him to the ftairs of the castle, he delivered a brief account of his birth, of the early courfe of his life, of his miraculous converfion; and is proceeding in his narrative, until he comes to defcribe a vision which was prefented to him, as he was praying in the temple; and which bid him depart out of Jerufalem,

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for I will fend thee far hence unto the Gentiles."

Acts

xxii. 21. 66 They gave him audience," fays the hiftorian, "unto this word; and then lift up their voices, and faid, Away

with fuch a fellow from the earth." Nothing can fhew more ftrongly than this account does, what was the offence which drew down upon St. Paul the vengeance of his countrymen. His miffion to the Gentiles, and his open avowal of that miffion, was the intolerable part of the apostle's crime. But although the real motive of the profecution appears to have been the Apoftle's conduct towards the Gentiles; yet, when his accufers came before a Roman magistrate, a charge was to be framed of a

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more legal form. The profanation of the temple was' the article they chofe to rely upon. This, therefore, became the immediate fubject of Tertullus's oration before Felix, and of Paul's defence. But that he all along confidered his ministry amongst the Gentiles as the actual fource of the enmity that had been exercised against him, and in particular as the cause of the insurrection in which his perfon had been seized, is apparent from the conclufion of his difcourfe before Agrippa: "I have appeared "unto thee," fays he, defcribing what paffed upon his journey to Damafcus, " for this

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purpose, to make thee a minister and a "witness, both of these things which thou "haft feen, and of those things in the which "I will appear unto thee, delivering thee "from the people and from the Gentiles, "unto whom now I fend thee, to open "their eyes, and to turn them from dark"nefs to light, and from the power of "Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of fins, and-inheritance among "them which are fanctified by faith that is in me. Whereupon, O King Agrippa,

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